“But if you were to die tonight where would you go to?” I asked him.
“To heaven, I hope,” was his reply.
“But why do you hope to go there? Many won’t. In what way do you differ from others, that entitles you to that hope?”
“Well, I do all I can that’s good, and I try to live the best way that I can, and I believe in God, and I hope I’ll go to heaven when I die.”
“Yes, that’s all very good; but you know ‘the devils also believe and tremble,’ and they are none the better for it.”
“True,” he said, rather staggered at the idea, and struck with the possibility of his ground not being altogether so firm as he had thought it was. “But,” he added, after a little pause, “the devils believe and tremble; they do not believe and serve.”
“Well, do you believe and serve?”
“I do.”
“You serve God? How long have you served Him?”
“Oh, this long time!”
“How long?”
“These many years now.”
“How many?”
“A good many—perhaps a dozen or thirteen.”
“But have you ever been converted?”
“Well, I can’t say as to that, exactly, but I have served God now these many years; that I’m sure of.”
“But Judas Iscariot served also. The Lord Jesus chose him as an apostle, and sent him out to preach the Gospel, and to cure diseases, and do many similar things along with the other apostles—yet we know that he was a traitor after all, and has gone to hell.”
“Oh! I hope not! I hope no one has gone there, nor ever will go. That’s an awful place, and it’s an awful thing to say of anyone. I would not say that of anyone. I hope God is too good to send anyone there. No, I wouldn’t say that of anyone.”
“But do you believe there is a place of ‘everlasting burnings’?”
After a pause he replied thoughtfully, “Yes, I do; the Book says it, and if I did not believe in ‘everlasting fire,’ I could not believe in ‘everlasting life,’ for it is the same Book that tells me of the one that tells me of the other also. I must believe it.”
“Well, and if you had your deserts, which would be your proper portion, eternal life or eternal judgment?”
“Eternal judgment; I know that, if I had my deserts, for there’s not a wickeder living man in the town than I have been.”
“And how then are you to escape it, if you deserve it? How do you expect to go to heaven?”
“Well, I just do the best I can, and pray to God, and believe and hope He will have mercy on me when I die, and overlook my sins.”
“That He won’t. He couldn’t do it,” I replied.
Looking at me with a mixture of amazement, curiosity, and contempt at my ignorance, he replied in a cynical tone, “Then there’s no salvation for me.”
“No,” I calmly said, “not in that way.”
“Then how am I to get it? Let me hear your way.”
“Now,” I said, “look here; suppose you owed a bill, say $100.00, at some store, and you could not pay it. And suppose there were different partners in the firm; we will call them, for example, Mr. William and Mr. Henry, etc. Now, if you went in one day to make known your poverty, and found Mr. William making up the books, and he said to you, ‘Well, Joe, I know you are a poor man, and cannot pay the money. I will overlook your account in the book, and not charge you with it.’ Wouldn’t that make you very happy? Wouldn’t you come away in great joy, and tell your wife that it was all right now because Mr. William had overlooked your account, and you need not pay the money?”
“I would, to be sure.”
“Now, suppose the next day you met one of the other partners— Mr. Henry, say— and he said, ‘Joe, you owe us $100.00!’ You would say, ‘Yes, but Mr. William has overlooked the account, and I haven’t to pay it.’ ‘Oh but,’ says Mr. Henry, ‘Mr. William has no power to do any such thing; he is but cone of the firm, and the firm demands it, so get ready to pay or go to prison.’ Where would your joy be then?”
“I confess it would be gone in a minute.”
“Of course it would. But suppose, instead of that, Mr. William had said, ‘Joe, you are poor and cannot pay; I will pay for you.’ And he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out $100.00, and put it into the till for you and said, ‘There, Joe, the money is paid; I will give you a receipt, and put paid to your name in the book.’ Would you then be afraid to meet the rest of the firm, with that receipt in your pocket?”
“No, that I would not.”
“Well now, Joe, God could not overlook your sin. His righteousness demanded the payment of the debt; but what justice demanded grace has provided. In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ God has shown how ‘He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth on Jesus.’ The Cross is not the overlooking, but the settlement of sin. The debt is paid! Now, ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’” Rom. 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1).
“Bold shall I stand at that great day,
For aught to my soul shall lay;
While by Thy blood absolved I am
From sin’s tremendous curse and fear.”
Thus I told him the story of the Cross. As I looked up, I saw his hand stealing to his pocket to get his handkerchief to wipe away the big tear-drops that were rolling down his cheeks while he tried to stifle his emotion. Seeing that I had noticed him, he said in a broken voice, “You must really excuse me, sir, for I cannot help it. There’s something in that that touches me. I haven’t wept any this many a long year, for my heart was as hard as a stone; but somehow that touches me, and I cannot help it.” Then he fairly broke down:— “I see it all! I was blind—the Cross settled it—it is not overlooked, but settled. I thank God. I thank Christ. I thank you, sir. Oh! but there are many blind that do not see the way, and those that teach them are as blind as themselves. No one ever told me that before, and I never heard it. I am thankful that I lived till today, for if I had died yesterday I would have been lost. I was on the wrong road, and many hundreds besides me; but now I see that the Cross has settled it all. Thank God! Thank God! I’m not afraid to die now,” and he sobbed right out.
His joy was so manifest and abiding that some called him “Joyful Joe,” and the name stuck to him ever after.
Reader, are you joyful, knowing that the Cross has settled all the claims of justice, and that all that is left for you to do is to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”? Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31).